Saturday, September 06, 2014

Clinging to life

Life, defiant
London, ON
August 2014
Thematic. Vegetation. Here.
I'm starting to really enjoy shooting with my smartphone. If you're a purist, please don't worry: It'll never replace my DSLR, or even my wife's little Canon that I secretly steal from her when I don't want to shlep my ginormous camera bag.

I love my BlackBerry Z30's camera, but pound-for-pound against my Nikon, it just doesn't have the control or the quality. Still, when you've just dropped the munchkins off at one of their myriad programs and you have a few extra minutes to wander the neighbourhood before you head back, that slim piece of glass, metal and plastic will easily do the job. And it opens up a whole new way of looking at photography.

To a certain extent, being limited to "only" a smartphone forces you to approach the moment a little differently. You choose subjects, compose and shoot them with a completely different mindset. It isn't an absolute quality thing. Rather, it's how you can creatively work within the limitations of the hardware to bring home an ideal result. And pushing a lowly smartphone camera is often more fun than slumming it with the photographic equivalent of an F-22A Raptor.

On this particular evening, the low-angled sun was painting the old buildings in this dead-silent warren of downtown side-streets a delightful shade of gold. It seemed like such a waste to not take advantage of the opportunity. And my little BlackBerry managed to bring home the moment just fine.

Your turn: This is an example of an in-between moment. What will you shoot next in your own in-between moment?

3 comments:

Tabor said...

I have to think about that because as a retired grandma...my in-between moments are few and far between!

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

I run around with a little Canon G-15 all the time. It does occasionally annoy me...it will want to autofocus on something well behind the critter it ought to be focusing on, for example.

But overall, I almost always have it with me, and I love it.
~

21 Wits said...

Secretly, but truthfully I've been shooting more often with my smartphone too. My son-in-law argues why use anything else when it's the best of the best for shooting photos! Hmmm. But, I did catch lots of in-between photos yesterday while at a Fall arts fair. I caught myself shooting the waterway, ducks, miniature boat races and random folks, just to name a few.